Indigo_Dingo:The lines were drawn in the Psychonauts review, between the games-r-art hippies (I like to consider myself as being in this category, as I once read through the plot and issue analysis of Killer 7), and the people who went to see Sweeney Todd and claimed the singing ruined it. People who want a deep storyline, cunning enemy AI, realistic physics, etc. vs. people who, well, like Halo

Halo has a very deep storyline even if your like me and won't read any of the half dozen books that accompany it. Halo has character development and many twists and turns. The biggest problem with the game was the shitty AI making everything boring. COD 4 has everything you mention. BioShock has everything you mention. Gears of War has it too. There are many awesome FPS games that have come out and I applaud designers and encourage them to keep up the excellent work.

Maybe my mouth foaming life style doesn't allow me to sit at home and try out all of the second rate games that you seem to go out of your way to find. Maybe I sit down and try to have fun the spare 2 or 3 hours I sometimes have instead of bitching about every game that isn't completely original.

I'm having fun. I'm about to have more too. Kane's Wrath is coming out soon along with Red Alert 3 and Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 looks like fun. Sometime in the spring the new Splinter Cell is coming out soon. Now there is an epic game series that has never disappointed me. Oh yeah Gears of War 2 is coming soon too!

Sorry to rant but I'm looking froward to the future. Just need to keep working hard so I'll have enough money for all of these great titles. So yeah I'll hang with my buds and we'll twitch and foam on our controllers, while you diss the gaming industry. At least I'm having the time of my life.

Read the title. Yahtzee mentions all FPS and claims that the problems with Turok are widespread. Many people were claiming that all of the issues were becoming common and ruining FPSs. I was arguing that they are a new industry standard and that FPSs are getting better and better.

ClassicThunder:Halo has a very deep storyline even if your like me and won't read any of the half dozen books that accompany it.

No offense, but it really don't have a very deep plot. It might be if you factored in the books (which I have not read), but those aren't actually part of the games, now are they?

You don't even need to have a deep plot for it to be good: look at Half-Life. The Half-Life series has never had a detailed and intricate plot, but what really makes the Half-Life series stand out from not only FPS, but many games in general, is the direction, dialog, and atmosphere.

ClassicThunder:Read the title. Yahtzee mentions all FPS and claims that the problems with Turok are widespread. Many people were claiming that all of the issues were becoming common and ruining FPSs. I was arguing that they are a new industry standard and that FPSs are getting better and better.

Then I argue that you are a chimp. All of the issues raised there have ruined certain FPS's for me, but when removed, or reversed (i.e. the gaming masterpeice that is Resistance : Fall of Man) the game itself is fantastic from head to foot. If the observed things are making FPS's less fun, then obviously Fps's are not getting better and better, but worse and worse.

Oh and to everyone out there, if you didnt understand the "I'm not offended by recent de-rez video srsly" the basic sum up is, they got someone to wear a fedora, act drunk scream yahtzee! and then run into a nearby forest while taking off their clothes.

Just to be clear(I replied to these forums earlier BTW)I liked the games intense action whenever I jump into it. I can't even get pass the giant eel boss(It is so damn ugly!). Also unless you had experience playing online for a while it is magor bull to say you beat it in one day.

Although realisitcally, you can't expect too much of modern FPS's, as the greatest one there can ever be i.e. Ed Hunter was made years ago, and unless Jesus came back and, rather than fixing the problems in the middle east, the famines in Africa or the Idiots in America, decides to make violent FPS's, it will remain the greatest FPS ever.

Indigo_Dingo:Then I argue that you are a chimp. All of the issues raised there have ruined certain FPS's for me, but when removed, or reversed (i.e. the gaming masterpeice that is Resistance : Fall of Man) the game itself is fantastic from head to foot. If the observed things are making FPS's less fun, then obviously Fps's are not getting better and better, but worse and worse.

Personal opinion only held by you and a few others. Have fun whining and reminiscing.

All I can say is "Well said, Yahtzee! It's about time somebody stood up for the good ol' days when PC fps weren't simply about running and gunning from point X to Y and that there was an astounding amount of divesity in them.", especially since the G4 people now watch your program,

Unfortunately, as long as Ubisoft continues to crank out Rainbow 6 Vegas sequels (since R6 officially went the way of the dodo ever since their move to the Unreal engine, and hence more pop-and-shoot gunbattles rather than real covert tactical planning and precision), and the more the industry supports this kind of uniformity because "it's more accessible" to the ironically "hardcore" crowd, I believe FPSs will continue to become stagnated and tarnished by the same people who thought that turning the original Halo from a tactical-team based pseudo-rts with squadbased mechanics to an utterly uninspired singleplayer campain focused on some heroics of an average superspacemarine, I think the videogame FPS industry as a whole is bound for shittyness.

Badmagic:I wish people in the industry at the moment would watch this episode in particular and be forced to pay attention, agreed with everything said with a wry smile on my face due to the style intrinsic to the author.

I would say my current pet peeve has to go to the grenades splash damage issue or the lack of as the case may be, it's farcical in any fps I played from recent memory, they are little more than an annoyance like roving midges in the height of summer.

I have to say I played HALO 1 on the PC when it came out and enjoyed it for what it was but I couldn't care less about #2 & #3 and the dumbing down of all types of game is slowly driving me insane.

I have heard people say that they aren't dumbing down games; my response would be yes they are, unless I'm gaining new intelligence and insight which I know is not physically possible at my current age and has not been for many years.

From what I have seen the author has no great affection for many RPG's but that's one of the areas that's getting affected the worst from my perspective, any developer that's producing them seems intent on trying to capture the fps market by castrating what should be rpg's and slapping on some fps game play elements.

So far in my personal option all these games managed to do was produce an experience with not enough fps to satisfy those customers they wanted to get the attention of and severely limit the rpg elements to alienate those customers too.

Argh, it's starting to grate again, I better stop now before I start ranting.

True i loved Halo 1 put 2 and 3 are just sad.

twilight_dweller:Call me ignorant, but why are we talking about Halo 3 in a Turok based thread? Whatever.

In any case, I just played Turok on my friend's 360. And all the issues Yahtzee talked about were there. And it really screamed "Generic!"

Because the evolution of Halo and its effect on FPSs is a issue to all FPSs and we are talking about FPSs as much as Turok, so please don't hate us for picking on Halo.

Indigo_Dingo.....I don't see a "drunken on the rail shooter" out doing Unreal,pysco circus,undying,duke 3d or even Blood any time soon.....

Uszi:I would say, Yahtzee, if you want FPS with a sense of humor, then play the Postal Series, which features such hilarious bits as pissing on yourself to put yourself out when you catch fire.

Yes, Postal 2 while possibly the sickest game I have ever played (though the Devs argue it is only a sick as you make it - the meanest way to kill someone I discovered was to tazer them to the floor, and while they lie twitching and defecating themselves pour gasoline on said victim, throw on the match, piss on them to put the blaze out after their skin turns crispy, then behead the poor sod with a spade. Kicking the severed head out of the nearest window and into the streets is optional) made me laugh more than any other FPS I've ever played. The inclusion of Osama Bin Laden in the post-9/11 patch was a masterstroke.

Personal opinion only held by you and a few others. Have fun whining and reminiscing.

Its Iron Maiden, which, with very few exceptions, automatically equals perfection (Exceptions are Guitar Hero III and the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II) . As all other games seem to lack the quality of being based on Iron Maidens music, they will all fall short.

Someone else said it, I will echo it. :) I like "Resistnaces'" take on Health Meters. It was segmented into four 25% portions. You would regen only up to the nearest 25th. 100%, 75%, 50%, etc etc. It was kinda like health meters, but it had regen effects. It wasn't the same as health meters, but more like the happy love child of Health Meters and Regeneration in FPS's today. :)

I'm not sad to see health meters go, and I'm not altogether upset at regenerating health in the modern FPS. I will be pleased if we even out on Fall of Mans' take on health meters. ;)

(I still play alot of CS:S, where it's health meter-rific, and the only form of a health kit is in the form of a Respawn. ;) )

Indigo_Dingo:Sheesh, did one of Resistance's designers steal your teddy? I was just talking about the health meter!

Something no FPS has copied so far, which is odd, because they are on to something with that segmented regenerating health bar if you ask me. If you make a mistake in a level you do get penalized for it later, unlike the 100% regenerating bar, which allows you to just run amok and see how far it gets you before even having to consider employing any kind of tactics at all (as long as you keep half an eye on an exit strategy).

I think the 100% health regeneration by sucking your thumb in the corner thing was invented to make life easier for programmers. You don't have to distribute health packets across a level anymore, and fear you've placed too few or too many. You can just assume the protagonist has full health at all times and build your enemy encounters around that.

ps.They could have a patent on that healthbar though, in which case it isn't that odd.

He is dead on about Aliens. Even COD4 has Aliens references! In the first level, where you are on the ship, right before you breach the door one of your fellow soldiers says, "I like to keep this handy for close encounters." Gee...where have I heard that before? Also, later in that level as the ship is going under one of your teammates says, "We are LEAVING!" Another direct reference to Aliens. Of course, I love every second of it :)

Vortigar:Indigo_Dingo:Sheesh, did one of Resistance's designers steal your teddy? I was just talking about the health meter!

Something no FPS has copied so far, which is odd, because they are on to something with that segmented regenerating health bar if you ask me. If you make a mistake in a level you do get penalized for it later, unlike the 100% regenerating bar, which allows you to just run amok and see how far it gets you before even having to consider employing any kind of tactics at all (as long as you keep half an eye on an exit strategy).

I think the 100% health regeneration by sucking your thumb in the corner thing was invented to make life easier for programmers. You don't have to distribute health packets across a level anymore, and fear you've placed too few or too many. You can just assume the protagonist has full health at all times and build your enemy encounters around that.

ps.They could have a patent on that healthbar though, in which case it isn't that odd.

pps.Thank you Firia.

Hold on, what? Was that directed at me? Why? I love resistances regenerating healthbar. I love everything about Resistance : Fall of Man, including their great concept ("O.k., most FPS's nowadays are about either Aliens or WW II. Lets combine them." "Thats insane. I like it"), their detailed storyline, which starts 42 years before the games opening, and has to be unlocked through the collecting of information, and their vehicle sections, which kick ass.

beddo:I understand that in a game you want to be the hero taking everyone out (something that COD4 often failed in during the SAS missions)

Wuh buh? Failed? I much preferred the SAS missions. I thought the whole point of the USMC missions was to show how the gung-ho US bulldozer approach resulted in a gigantic fustercluck which required the covert, surgical tactics of the SAS to salvage. But hey, that was just my reading of it.

nightfish:One has to wonder though what the point of being a games reviewer is in Australia. I mean not only do you have the release date problems but a ridiculously strict censor board.

True, but thankfully they haven't banned anything particularly good yet, as far as I know. (We got GTA III eventually.) The lack of an R-rating for games (which is the reason "adult" games can't be released here) won't last: it was the result of a reactionary old Catholic bastard having the balance of power in one of the houses of Parliament for years.

Zera:it really does suck he wont be able to play Brawl yet. If I have the money, I would send him a copy.

You'd better believe Australians (along with Europeans) were mighty pissed off when the Wii and 360 were announced to be region-locked.

Uszi:I would say, Yahtzee, if you want FPS with a sense of humor, then play the Postal Series, which features such hilarious bits as pissing on yourself to put yourself out when you catch fire.

Yes, Postal 2 while possibly the sickest game I have ever played (though the Devs argue it is only a sick as you make it - the meanest way to kill someone I discovered was to tazer them to the floor, and while they lie twitching and defecating themselves pour gasoline on said victim, throw on the match, piss on them to put the blaze out after their skin turns crispy, then behead the poor sod with a spade. Kicking the severed head out of the nearest window and into the streets is optional) made me laugh more than any other FPS I've ever played. The inclusion of Osama Bin Laden in the post-9/11 patch was a masterstroke.

Well said, my kindred spirit.I mentioned postal since we here in the states can expect Postal 3 relatively soon. Unfortunately Yahtzee has to wait until 2009. Poor Bugger. I'd like to see what he would have to say though, since I feel like the Postal series is in a totally different plane of gaming than Halo--as far as FPS goes.

I think that we should get a REAL shooter, where if you take a bullet to the hand you go down on all fours crying for your mum, while your attacker prepares a curb-stomp execution, and a shot anywhere to your chest, neck, head, or major arteries will instantly kill you.

True, but thankfully they haven't banned anything particularly good yet, as far as I know. (We got GTA III eventually.) The lack of an R-rating for games (which is the reason "adult" games can't be released here) won't last: it was the result of a reactionary old Catholic bastard having the balance of power in one of the houses of Parliament for years.

You'd better believe Australians (along with Europeans) were mighty pissed off when the Wii and 360 were announced to be region-locked.

We've missed out on Leisure Suit Larry (not that I'm compaining, we're really better off for it) Manhunt 1 and 2, and, for some reason, Mark Eco's getting up : Contents Under Pressure. I've seen grafiti on the roof of train tunnels, these guys already know the techniques.

As for me, its a real bitch, but I just don't trust eBay enough to order my copy of Rock Band for my Ps3, and I don't make enough to be able to buy a whole new Wii just for Brawl.

nightfish:One has to wonder though what the point of being a games reviewer is in Australia. I mean not only do you have the release date problems but a ridiculously strict censor board.

You know, you can always listen to an American reviewer, who got the game into their undeserving slime covered hands then instantly threw it away and went back to Halo 7: Same Old Shit, But A New Box because "Nnitendo SUKS BALLS! I'M TO 1337 TO BE DISSED LOL!" (not that I'm bitter or anything).

Or are you saying that you want to hear a reviewer that is as funny and insightful as Yahtzee, but gets the games at the same time as you?. So you want either a funny Japanese person (No disrespect, but I've never seen one actually laugh-out-loud funny come out of Japan) or an insightful American? Good luck.

I think that we should get a REAL shooter, where if you take a bullet to the hand you go down on all fours crying for your mum, while your attacker prepares a curb-stomp execution, and a shot anywhere to your chest, neck, head, or major arteries will instantly kill you.